


Whumptober 2020 - Stucky Edition

by luninosity



Series: Whumptober 2020 [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Abandonment, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blackmail, Broken Bones, Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fear, Happy Ending, Headaches & Migraines, Healing, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Love, M/M, Nightmares, Political Campaigns, Rescue Missions, Serious Injuries, Superpowers, Whump, Whumptober 2020, standard Hydra-related experimentation warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:14:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27213274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: My Whumptober 2020 fills that are all Steve/Bucky!1 - theme 1. LET’S HANG OUT SOMETIME - prompt: Waking Up Restrained (Bucky and a mission gone wrong)2 - theme 5. WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING? - prompts: Failed Escape | Rescue (Steve's nightmare: failing to rescue Bucky) (but he did! it's okay!)3 - theme 8. WHERE DID EVERYBODY GO? - prompts: Abandoned | Isolation (while in France, Bucky triggers a Hydra trap...but Steve'll find him...right?)4 - theme 9. FOR THE GREATER GOOD - prompt: Ritual Sacrifice; theme 20. TOTO, I HAVE A FEELING WE’RE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE - prompt: Medieval (fantasy-medieval AU, in which Bucky - when he least expects it - is chosen by the Protector)5 - theme 11. PSYCH 101 - prompt: Defiance; theme 12. I THINK I’VE BROKEN SOMETHING - prompt: Broken Bones; theme 25. I THINK I’LL JUST COLLAPSE RIGHT HERE, THANKS - prompts: Blurred Vision | Ringing Ears (sequel to chapter one! Steve POV: coming to find Bucky)6 - theme 17. I DID NOT SEE THAT COMING - prompt: Blackmail; theme 26. IF YOU THOUGHT THE HEAD TRAUMA WAS BAD… - prompt: Migraine (modern-day politician!Steve & writer!Bucky AU, with headaches, attempted blackmail, and comfort!)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: Whumptober 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1986763
Comments: 30
Kudos: 88
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	1. waking up restrained

**Author's Note:**

> All written relatively quickly, so hopefully they've come out okay! There should be six chapters that're Steve/Bucky, I think - grouped here - and the rest of this Whumptober series will cover other fandoms/pairings!

Bucky’s woken up in restraints before. He even remembers some of those times. The fun, the not so fun, and the ugly. This one definitely qualifies as ugly.

He doesn’t move, doesn’t speak— _don’t let them know you’re awake,_ whispers the Soldier in his head, _don’t give away any information, don’t give them a reason to hurt you more_ —but he thinks he’s alone in the room, wherever the room is, if it’s still the same room he’d gone down fighting in. This is not good for a number of reasons, not least of which has to do with Steve also not being in the room.

Steve Rogers will fight the world if someone needs him. Even more so if that someone’s Bucky Barnes, who doesn’t deserve Steve’s big damn hero heart but somehow gets to have it anyway, to cup it in both hands and keep it safe.

Bucky tries to move his arm, the vibranium one. Can’t, in the way that suggests something’s very wrong. He can’t feel much either. Sensors not working. Okay. Good to know.

He makes himself breathe for a second, not remembering pain and helplessness and the phantom space at his shoulder when he’d first lost—

No.

He does a rapid mental inventory. Broken ribs: definitely. One cracked femur, though it’s knitting itself back together. Dull aches around his kidneys. A bullet through his stomach. Something not working right in his throat, but that’s also healing. His flesh and blood arm feels wrong too. Crushed. Numb, in an ominous way. Not mobile.

He can handle all of that. Whatever they’ve done to his arms might be an issue, but he’s felt worse.

He guesses Steve’s busy making some other people feel a lot worse too right now, unstoppable angry ball of justice that he is; that has to be the case, because if Steve’s not fighting, that means Steve’s in even worse shape, which isn’t allowed to happen. Not while Bucky Barnes is alive, thanks.

He opens both eyes.

A straight-up medieval torture chamber looms back at him, except it’s also made love to a mad scientist’s laboratory, which come to think of it describes Hydra as a whole pretty well. Water drips down a wall for an extra-unpleasant slimy effect, dim light glints off worrying metal implements, and there’s a giant hole in the wall over to the left, courtesy of one of Bucky’s grenades colliding with a mystical incantation on their way in. Nobody’s anywhere in sight, and they must’ve figured Bucky was taken care of for the moment, since he’s lying on a cold stone floor with his legs in manacles and an honest-to-God boulder pinning both his arms.

Stupid of them, really.

He remembers storming the fortress, him at Steve’s back, as always. He remembers Steve giving orders, directing agents to rescue their captured friends. Of course it’d been a trap, but Steve Rogers will walk into fire or ice or in this case a goddamn warlock’s dungeon to save good people, and it’s Bucky’s job to make sure someone saves Steve.

He’s guessing that, if Steve hasn’t come for him yet, some saving might be in order about now.

He can’t move either arm yet, but his legs’re doing better. The healing feels strange, though. Off somehow. Sluggish.

They’d run in and there’d been people, both the mystical chanting kind and the kind with guns, and Steve had gone right through them in search of the kidnapped agents, and Bucky’d noticed the weapon shakily being lifted by one of the men left on the ground in Steve’s wake, and he’d thrown a knife and thrown himself in front of Steve but everything’d gone black and broken—

 _So our strategy failed,_ muses the Winter Soldier silently. That piece of Bucky’s head isn’t judgmental, because it doesn’t remember how to be, but it does unemotionally consider data and move to the next option. _Assume that Captain America is incapacitated, and follow procedure six for—_

“Shut up,” he says aloud, “nothing failed and nobody’s incapacitated, I got between Steve and whatever the fuck it was, that was _perfect_ strategy,” and twists an ankle, in a rusted loop of iron. This’s going to hurt, and he’s not going to like it.

It does, and he doesn’t. He doesn’t quite scream or pass out, though he would’ve been okay with either, frankly. He’s not worried about what any Hydra surveillance thinks of him, if they’re even watching.

He does lie very limp and immobile for a while, unable to do much else, while his broken and now freed feet put themselves into some sort of order. Little glittery sparks dance along his vision. His breathing’s short and shallow with pain.

But, hey, he’s got feet. Which means he’s got explosives. No one took the time to search him, at least not properly. He wiggles off his boots, once he can. Finds a helpful little destructive toy with his toes. Flings it at the boulder.

The rock explodes, which given that it’s above his head, anchoring his arms where he’s pinned to the floor, might’ve not been hist best idea. Stone shards fly. Burning flecks lace his skin. His hearing vanishes in ringing echoes.

He tries not to think about his crushed arm, or the non-functioning metal one, or the way his gut’s bleeding still, a trickle.

He makes himself sit up, because he’s free and Steve needs him. His arms’ll heal. He’ll heal. No matter what they’ve done to him.

 _Steve_ , he thinks; and he winces as a bone straightens itself.

He makes himself get up, hand on the wall for support. His ankles aren’t thrilled, given what he’s just put them through, but they love Steve too, so they cooperate.

 _Steve,_ he thinks again, _I’m coming_. And he stumbles toward the stairs.


	2. failed escape / rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Steve's nightmare, the rescue fails.

Bucky, lying somewhere in the blissful simple space between asleep and awake, catches the shift in the sound of Steve’s breathing. He’s instantly alert, snapped to full consciousness.

He knows Steve’s breathing. He always has. All the pieces of him do.

The Soldier monitors Steve automatically, with training and skill and awareness of rhythms and fragility and a heart that knew Steve even when the rest of him didn’t. James Buchanan Barnes once upon a time stayed awake night after night when younger Steve’s chest rattled and heaved, who got down on his knees more than once and prayed to whoever might be listening, who told the universe that Steve was good and bright and fierce and more worth saving than one James Barnes ever could be, so if the universe could just see its way to a trade, well, that’d be fine with him. And then there’s Bucky Barnes, finally, at least the version he is now: the version up on one elbow watching Steve’s chest move up and down, in the smoke and shadow of the night.

He listens. He doesn’t move quite yet: Steve’s exhausted after the most recent mission, a success but a rough-edged whisker-thin kind, clench-jawed and taut. Steve needs to rest.

Steve whispers his name. Bucky. And a noise, a frustrated one. “Bucky—”

“I’m here, punk.” Bucky puts his hand on Steve’s chest. The sensors will pick up anything wrong, any lingering toxin in Steve’s veins or any skipped heartbeats or rise in temperature.

He knows there’s nothing wrong. All cleared. SHIELD doctors confident. Supersoldier serum handling it all…handily.

He still has too many instincts right this second, despite what the doctors say; they all revolve around protecting Steve.

“Bucky.” Steve’s distressed, in dreams. “No—no, wake up—you gotta wake up, Buck, come on—”

“Steve. _Steve_.” Bucky taps a finger over Steve’s sternum, taking care not to use too much vibranium force. “I’m here. I’m fine, punk, come on, you jumped in front of me when it went off—not that I asked you to, y’know—you took that hit, you know that, we’re good.”

“Bucky,” Steve whispers, and his voice sounds so young, so despairing, so lost. “I can’t, I can’t—please don’t leave me, please don’t be gone—I’m here, I’m here to save you—no, no, you can’t be, this can’t be, it’s not, it’s not _true_ , you’re not—”

“I’m not!” Bucky ignores a few stray chills down his spine—Steve’s talking like he thinks Bucky’s _dead_ , which, fuck no, no thanks, though to be fair Steve’s got some justification for that—and this time actually sits up and shakes Steve’s shoulders. Hard. “Don’t make me fucking wake you up by sitting on your dick, Rogers, I’ve already done that five times tonight and it’s gonna be hard enough to walk tomorrow as it is.”

He’s making it a joke because he’s worried, now. Not about his poor overworked body, assaulted by Steve’s impressive stamina—he’s fine, thank you, Steve’s mother-hen concern; hell, he could handle another two rounds, probably, if Steve dared him to take it—but about Steve’s emotional state.

Steve blinks at him, waking up. Good: the shaking, or the sex reference, has worked. “…Bucky.”

“In the flesh.” He considers this, wiggles a specific hand. “Mostly.”

“ _Bucky_.”

“Still me. No deadly supertoxins eating anyone alive from the inside out. I swear, Steve, I’m fine.”

“You weren’t.” Steve sits up, sheet tangling around his legs. They’re both naked; they sleep naked, because they both like touching each other. As much sensation, as much certainty, as possible.

Steve presses the heels of both hands into his eyes. “You were—I came to save you and you weren’t—you were already—”

“I know. Stevie, I know.”

“You don’t.” Steve’s voice shakes. “You _died_ , Buck—you died and it was my fault, I wasn’t fast enough, I wasn’t there quick enough, I didn’t save you—I couldn’t save you, _again_ —”

“You did, though.” He tries for casual, for soothing. Hand brushing the nape of Steve’s neck. Silent nighttime lying violet as mourning over them both. “I was there, y’know. Kinda hard not to notice you charging in to rescue me.”

“Not that.” Steve drops the hands but doesn’t look up. “You know I don’t mean that. Or I do. Or—I can never save you. Because I can’t. Because I didn’t.”

“You did.” He knows what Steve means. He takes both of those big Captain America hands in his, holding them. “You saved me, Stevie. I took one look at you and remembered some piece of me, of us, and if that’s not saving me I don’t know what is.”

“I can never save you,” Steve says, small, “enough. Every time I dream about it—it’s not always the train. Like this one. It was today. The lab—but it went wrong, I didn’t get there, you got hit with the—and I just had to fucking _watch_ —”

“I know,” Bucky says again. “Steve…” Deep breath. One more. Scooting around so he’s closer to Steve, right up in the face of that ball of selfless misery and courageous anguish.

Steve looks up, at that. Fumbles for a watery smile. “Sorry, Buck…it’s fine, I’m fine, I’m good. You need anything? More aftercare, maybe a sandwich, maybe a massage or something? Kinda rough on you, that fourth time…”

“You know I like it.” He’d meant it to be flippant; the words’re unexpectedly soft, a truth layered into midnight. “I love it, Steve—love feeling it. I’m here and I’m with you and you’re with me and we’re fucking alive. Alive and fucking. Whatever. You get the point.”

Steve’s smile wobbles but grows more real. “Want the joke about which one of us was getting my—”

“Nah, not yet. Listen.” He swings a leg over Steve’s lap because he can, now; they’re getting better. They end up sitting face to face; Steve’s hands automatically come to rest on his waist.

“Listen,” Bucky says again. “Don’t tell me I don’t know. I have that dream too. You think I don’t? I don’t wake up in time—from the shit in my head, I mean—and I hurt you so bad that—or sometimes I even—or sometimes you get yourself shot trying to save me, and it’s my fucking fault, and I wake up screaming. Hell, you’ve been there for the screaming. More than once.”

“I thought—”

“You thought I was remembering,” Bucky agrees. “Some of it, yeah. Sometimes. Not all.”

“I never knew—why didn’t you tell me—”

“Why don’t you?”

Steve stares at him, then exhales—mostly a laugh—and sags forward. Their foreheads rest together. “Buck. Bucky. I’m—”

“If the next word out of your mouth’s gonna be _sorry_ , I’m gonna give you something else to do with it instead.”

Steve leans back just a bit, enough to look him in the eye, expression a cross between a puppy caught in the act and a lover amused at Bucky’s threat and a man holding onto comfort with a desperate hopeful grip. “That so?”

“Yeah,” Bucky informs him, “it’ll be torture, real cruel and unusual punishment,” and leans in and makes the kiss deep and sweet and hot and as sure as he knows how, tongue and teeth and little nibbles and undeniable reality, just the way Steve likes.

When he pauses for air, Steve says, “I fucking love you, y’know.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, smug, sitting in Steve’s lap. “Got that, thanks.”

“We’re good.” Steve reaches up, cups Bucky’s cheek: reassurance more than anything else. The words’re a statement but the tone’s a question. “You and me.”

“We’re awesome,” Bucky says. “We got each other. Every time, that’s true—I wake up and you’re real, you wake up and I’m real, and this’s real, Steve, you and me.” He waits a beat, judges timing, throws in, “Wouldn’t mind the massage. If you’re still offering.”

Steve laughs. His other hand tightens over Bucky’s hip. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m offering. Anything you want, Buck.”

“Big promise, Stevie, I’m holding you to that.”

“Shut up,” Steve says, grinning. The sound of his laugh lingers; the night’s snug and private around them. Their bed’s calm, tranquil, sturdy under their weight. Bucky’s hip’s warm under Steve’s fingers. “And lie down so I can get my hands on you.”

“Thought you already were. I’m moving, I’m moving, I’m comfortable, go ahead. Said I like feeling you.”

“Yeah.” Steve runs a hand over Bucky’s back, up and down, slow and secure. “Yeah, me too.”


	3. abandoned / isolation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On a mission in France, Bucky triggers a Hydra trap, and is caught and injured. But Steve'll find him...right?

They’re in France, picking their way carefully through enemy territory, when Bucky triggers the trap.

He’s on his own, covering Steve with his rifle as those ridiculous red-white-and-blue shoulders pick their way through an abandoned Hydra base. They’d been meant to raid the place; someone must’ve known they were coming. The self-destruct’s recent, only a couple of hours old, but impressively fireball-laced.

Steve had wanted to search anyway, to look for anything useful to bring back, any scraps of information, any references to prisoners being held. Bucky had said nothing to that last one, though Steve’s eyes’d cut over to him; he’d only nodded.

Hell, all the Howlies’ve been prisoners. Bucky’s no different. Not special.

He’s here at this vantage point up on the low rise because he doesn’t trust Hydra not to’ve left a few foot soldiers behind, knowing Captain America’s on the way; someone needs to keep an eye out for threats Steve doesn’t see. Bucky’s watching the whole scene, the rubble, the dwindling flames. Might be some suspicious sparks. An evil gleam of metal coming out of the trees.

Dum Dum says something to Morita, holding up a piece of lab equipment; they confer. Steve moves, steps behind a broken building, ducks out of sight.

Bucky mutters a curse or two under his breath. Pushes himself up. Starts to adjust his position.

He hears a sound. _Almost_ a sound. A click or a catch—

Steve, is his first thought; but it’s not Steve in danger, no, it’s the hillside vanishing under Bucky’s own feet, dropping away and dropping him—a goddamn Hydra booby trap, and he walked into it, he heard it but not fast enough, even as he dives for the too-far side of the crumbling hill—

He falls. Fast, and hard, and far.

He lands wrong and badly, and a series of sickening snaps burst through his body, his head. And the world goes black.

He wakes up, gradually, agonizingly.

He’s cold. And in pain. Those’re the first two realizations.

He’s cold and in pain and alone in the dark—hurting and trapped and taken away from Steve and his men because of Hydra, all over again—and he can’t breathe, can’t make himself inhale, lungs not working, throat making small frantic airless sounds, heart slamming into his ribs—

No, he shouts at himself. No. You’re Sergeant James Barnes, you’re in love with Steve Rogers, you’ve got a squad of good men and Captain America himself. You’ll get out of this. It’s not the same. Not like before.

Memory whispers across his closed eyelids: his voice, raggedly mumbling, and a sharp needle sliding under his skin.

He forces himself to breathe by thinking of Steve. Of himself, back home in Brooklyn, kneeling on the floor at Steve’s bedside on a vicious winter night. Counting Steve’s breaths: in and out, in and out.

He does it for himself now. In. And out.

He opens his eyes. Tries to look around.

Everything’s dark and dim, nearly black. Bucky in fact has a vague sense that it should be _all_ black, that he shouldn’t be able to make out the distant edges of mechanisms or tree roots. He thinks he might be able to see in the dark a little better than he used to.

He chalks that up next to _maybe a broken toe shouldn’t heal that fast_ and _I haven’t gotten even a cold, not even when the rest of the Howlies caught that bug and were puking up their guts, ever since that room and that table_ on the list of things he hasn’t told Stevie and probably should. Sometime. No rush. Wouldn’t want Steve to worry.

His rifle’s come down with him, which is good. The hillside appears to’ve sealed itself over above him, which is bad. He guesses Hydra doesn’t care too much about captured intruders running out of air. The idea’s most likely that—if the base was still operational—they’d come pick him up for interrogation or else simply let him die.

He shouts, “Steve!” He doesn’t expect the sound to carry far, and it doesn’t. He’s pretty far down, twenty feet at least, and that’s an ominous metal plate up above.

He’s avoided looking at his legs, so far.

He catches his breath as pain washes over him. Steve knows his approximate location. Someone’ll come. Someone’ll notice the trap and release the catch and find him. Steve will find him.

He lies very still, staring up at the blackness above, waiting. The pain comes in waves, building, cresting, ebbing.

No one’s coming, not yet. He feels something sticky on the side of his face; he touches his temple. Blood, he thinks: a smoky smudge over his fingers in the dark.

When Steve comes for him, he’ll need to be in shape to be rescued. It’s that thought that makes him struggle to sit up. To confront the ruin of his legs, snapped white bone and mangled flesh. The left one’s worse than the right; he’d landed harder on that one.

He’s feeling dizzy. He closes his eyes again. Maybe some sort of splint, something—his jacket, his belt—

It won’t be enough. It won’t be enough, because his legs are—and he’s bleeding so much—and when Steve finds him, he won’t be able to get up, he’ll be a liability—

Bucky, alone in the dark, can’t quite force back the sob. Fingers pressed into dirt. Digging in, futilely.

When Steve finds him—

If. If Steve finds him. The possibility swims up out of the shadows along with silent mocking laughter. It inquires, all friendly malice: you think he’ll guess what happened? He can’t hear you. No one can hear you.

“Shut up,” Bucky snaps, aloud.

Do you think, asks the dark, that you deserve a second miracle? That you have any right to be saved again? After you’ve already needed it once, sad little useless toy soldier that you are? Pathetic.

It has Zola’s voice. Bucky bites his lip hard enough to taste blood there too, copper and iron as opened-up earth.

The pit murmurs silkily: you think Steve will be happy to rescue you another time? Over and over? When he has better things to do, he’s meant for more, he’s _Steve Rogers_ and you’re Bucky Barnes?

“No.”

It says: You know you keep dragging him down, holding him back. You know he resents you for it. How could he not, when you’re so needy, so helpless, so desperate to stay with him?

“He doesn’t,” Bucky whispers. “Steve’s not—Steve’s not like that. Steve’s…”

Gas, he wonders. Some hallucinogen. Some trick. Noises in the pit. Blood loss. This isn’t real. It isn’t true. Steve cares about him.

Steve does care about him. Steve loves him, though they rarely say it—twice that Bucky can recall, never when anyone else can hear, always careful—they say it in touches, glances, Steve’s brush of fingertips over the back of Bucky’s neck or a sketch of Bucky napping in lazy summer sunshine on their old sagging sofa…

The two times they’ve said the words, Bucky said it first. Once the night before he shipped out, the two of them entwined in bed, both of them thinking about the cold grey light of dawn. Once the first time Steve slipped into his tent after saving him the _last_ time, and Bucky’d felt so shaken and raw and unlike himself, and he’d just needed to say it, to cling to Steve and say it as Steve held him and made him feel good and reminded him _how_ to feel good…

Steve had whispered it back, into his hair, holding him.

Steve’s never said it first. Only when Bucky needs it—when Bucky needs him, needs saving…

What if Steve doesn’t come for him now?

Steve will want to, he believes—Steve doesn’t abandon people. Against the law of that big golden leonine heart. But that doesn’t mean Steve _will_ come.

Steve might not find him. Might give up. Might have to make a tactical decision, if there’re other booby traps around. Might not keep trying.

Steve might finally, this time, at last and inevitably, consider this an acceptable if painful loss, and move on.

Bucky’s fingers are cold. He’s cold all over. He doesn’t know how long he’s been down here, in the dark.

He whispers, “Steve?” And then he whispers the names of his squad, he shouts their names, all of them, one by one: but no one answers. Nothing changes.

His legs still hurt but something’s starting to feel different. He doesn’t look.

He tries to think. To plan. If no one’s coming, what can he do? He’s got a rifle and his coat and spare ammunition and some field rations in a pouch, enough for a day, or four if he stretches them out. He knows that the pit’s mostly dirt with some metal gears and slabs, covering the roof and part of the sides, making them too slick to scale.

It’s not an insurmountable problem, surely. He’s good at angles and aim and calculations. He can figure this out. He can get back to Steve, and go right on watching Steve’s back, and nothing has to change.

He eyes the walls. Is digging possible? Under or around the metal?

Hydra would’ve thought of that. Anyway, moving’s tricky.

Shooting something, a gear or lever? Maybe. Might bring the whole place down, though.

He pictures being covered by an avalanche of metal and dirt, being buried by it and smothered slowly by it; and then he has to stop thinking about it and make himself breathe again.

His right knee itches. He scratches it absentmindedly.

His fingers come away tacky with blood, and for a split second his stomach lurches and he’s afraid he might be sick, but then he makes himself stop and take it in.

His knee looks like a knee. A little misshapen, twisted, smeared with dull red under the shreds of his pant leg, but healed over. Closed up. No bone visible at all. The shape of it shifts more as he watches: closer to normal, less bent.

He swallows hard. Forces himself to look more.

His lower leg’s healing too, putting itself back together. He can see it; he stares, fascinated in a gruesome way. Bones and muscles and veins knitting, repairing, weaving. Blood pumping. It’s almost pretty, in a churning awful way. The left leg’s doing it too, not fast but obviously on its way.

So, he thinks, half-hysterically; so, I was right about the whole not getting sick part, look at that, look at me; and he laughs helplessly, and then he puts an arm over his face and lets himself cry, quietly, coming apart as his body fixes itself.

He stops crying at some point. He curls up in the dark with his rifle, because he can do that now, he can move, though his legs feel weak and won’t hold him yet.

How long’s it been? Minutes? Hours? Days? Enough time that he’s got ankles again. His head doesn’t hurt, either, at least not physically. It probably should. His hand had been very wet, earlier, touching there.

He shuts his eyes and sees the table, the injections, the self-satisfied cruel curl of a smile—

That was then. This is now. He’s not there. He’s here.

But here _is_ there, here is right back in a Hydra trap, here is knowing he’s been changed somehow, he’s something different somehow, and no one’ll save him and no one’s coming, because why would they? Even if they could find him, why would they want him back? Someone altered and made different, someone with this secret…even if they don’t know the secret, he’s still a problem, in need of care and rescue…

Steve looks at him sometimes as if afraid, as if worried, as if Bucky’s fragile and damaged…and of course Steve’s right, of course Bucky’s not good enough…but that’s always been true, Bucky Barnes’ ordinary little loves of comics and science fiction and sunshine in Steve’s hair could never be enough for the real Steve, Steve who would take on the world if he could and make it better through sheer force of will…

But Steve’s needed him, sometimes. Once or twice. A shot defending Steve’s six. A scouting mission with important information. That’s mattered, hasn’t it?

If he can get out, he can get back to Steve. He can try to go on being useful. He can lift his rifle and protect Steve and love Steve, silently, hopelessly, and that’ll be enough, if he’s allowed that much. He’ll take it. Please. Just that. He won’t ask for more.

He can sit up easily now. He can stand, with one hand braced on the wall of the pit. He hobbles around it, pacing, testing. He thinks the light’s dimmed even more; nighttime, maybe?

He eyes the dirt, and the metal panes above. If he can gouge some handholds into it—

Something shakes. Dirt moves. The metal above wobbles.

Is someone here? The Commandos, or Hydra, or—Steve? Someone?

Bucky sucks in air, yells, “Hey!” and scrabbles around for a rock. Throws it, hard and accurate, a fastball. It clangs off metal and drops back.

More shaking happens. Excitement. Voices? Maybe? Indistinct, they’re hard to make out. They move away and return.

A whole lot of dirt starts sliding in. Walls collapsing. Whatever they’re doing up there, it’s making his pit unstable.

“You’re not helping!” Bucky yells upward. They kind of are, though. At least they’re trying.

Metal creaks and groans. Being battered. Bending under an onslaught. More clanging sounds boom, the kind made by angry apprehensive vibranium being wielded by angry apprehensive muscles.

The top of his pit screams and shrieks and breaks open. A metal sheet and half a tree clatter downward; Bucky swears and dives out of the way, and narrowly avoids snapping a reconstructed ankle in the process.

A whirlwind of heroic passion plunges down through dirt to land beside him. “Bucky!”

“Oh, hey,” Bucky manages, coughing, through dust and the strange aching sensation in his own chest. Maybe that’s only breathing. Oxygen. Fresh air. “Nice of you to drop in.”

“Bucky—” Steve’s hands reach for him, but falter; Steve’s eyes are wide and blue and abruptly scared, raking over his body. “Bucky, don’t move, don’t—you’re hurt, you’re bleeding—how bad—” He cuts himself off to shout up, “Throw us a med kit, something, anything, but _hurry_ —” Back to Bucky: “That’s—there’s so much—don’t try to move, Buck, don’t try to get up—your head, your _legs_ —”

Steve’s hands shake. Steve’s voice shakes. Steve’s face is pale, horrified, trying not to panic. “Don’t look at it, Buck, don’t look down, just look at me, keep looking at me—”

“ ’M fine.” Bucky pushes himself up. Sees Steve’s expression snap from terrified to uncomprehending. “Really, Steve, I swear. Just kinda bled a lot.”

“You…” Steve’s hand hovers over his shoulder. “You’re…okay? But—you look…”

“Head wounds,” Bucky attempts, “they get messy, Steve, you know that.” His hip’s sore because he landed on that; he rubs it gingerly as the soreness drains away.

The sky’s dark blue, not black, and speckled with stars and ringed with trees, above. Only about an hour, then. Not longer. Just a small amount of time. So small.

A medical kit and a rope come flying down, and worried Commando faces appear at the rim of the pit. They cheer, seeing Bucky’s wave. Steve waves up too, belatedly.

“So,” Bucky tries, “want to get out of here? Hey, how’d you know where to look?”

“I knew you were up on that hill.” Steve’s eyebrows have that tight furrow between them, the one that means he’s trying to work something out. “And then you stopped answering. And when I got there the ground looked wrong. We guessed it was some kind of trap, just had to work out how it opened and where the weak point was. Are you _sure_ you’re—”

“I’m great, except for the whole bein’ dropped into a pit part.” He starts to get up; Steve dives in to steady him, arm going around him. Bucky doesn’t admit to being grateful for the touch, the anchor, the reality; he doesn’t cry, either, just says, “It’s okay, Stevie, I’m okay, let’s go before Dum Dum decides to throw anything else at us—oh, grab that med kit, we shouldn’t leave it—”

“Bucky,” Steve starts, but then shakes his head: practicality first, getting them out first. “Come on, here, I got you…”

They make it out, courtesy of ropes and supersoldier muscles and a shield for leverage. They make it back to their camp, gingerly: Bucky has to reassure everyone that he’s fine, that he’s not hurt, that he’s willing to joke and laugh and take goodnatured ribbing about being a sniper who can’t see a trap under his own feet. He nods and grins and takes steps on his rebuilt feet, which none of them know about, under the stars.

He jokes along. He laughs. He accepts the teasing.

Steve stays at his side as they walk. Steve looks at him as if wanting to say something, as if uncertain, as if not knowing how. Bucky’s never known Steve to be afraid of jumping into messy situations before. But Steve is now, because of him.

He’s not really hungry, even though there’s Morita’s stew. He makes himself eat a few bites, being there, being part of the squad. He listens to a summary of what they’ve found—some equipment, some notes, stuff they’ll send back for study—and nods along. He wants to change; he’s wrapped in a blanket because his clothes are likely unsalvageable. Those don’t appear to be self-healing.

He’s trying to figure out how to tell them all he’s tired and could use some rest, when Steve’s hand lands on his shoulder, and Steve says, “I know you’re okay, I just kinda think I should make sure, y’know? Want to let me take a look?”

Bucky’s bones hurt, not physically. He’s exhausted, empty, whittled down to nothing. But it’s Steve, so he says sure, the way he always will if Steve needs reassurance.

The Howlies, rather surprisingly, only nod and grin and elbow each other but don’t say much. Bucky’s not sure whether they’ve guessed he’s in love with Steve and they just don’t mind, or whether Steve’s impressed them all enough that they’d follow him regardless of anything. They’ve never mentioned a word about him and Steve sharing a tent.

The firelight brushes his back, as he moves away from the heat.

In their tent the world’s quiet and lamplit and anxious. Steve’s set out bandages and cloths, but hesitates. “You don’t…need much of this.”

“No,” Bucky says hastily. “No, Steve, I’m good.”

“I just…” Steve exhales. His shoulders droop a fraction. The shield’s leaning on his pack, in the corner where he’s set it down. “Can I at least…help clean this up? Some of this…” His fingers touch Bucky’s temple, Bucky’s neck.

Bucky, who’d sort of forgotten about the head injury, has to remember; and then nods.

A muscle in Steve’s jaw jumps; but he only finds a cloth and some water, and comes back over. “Tell me if anything hurts, okay?”

It won’t and it will. Bucky nods again.

Steve flinches as if the nod’s been a blow, and squares his shoulders. Picks up damp cloth, and touches it to Bucky’s temple.

Slowly, gradually, under low golden light, the blood washes away. Under Steve’s touch. Cleaned from Bucky’s skin.

He strips off his jacket and shirt and even pants when Steve asks to see him. He stands laid bare and exposed because Steve’s asked. He glances down and over to the side, where he’s set his torn-up boots. They’ll need stitching.

Steve’s hand draws back. The water in the bowl’s pinker and grittier now, from red and dirt. “Bucky…”

“I’m okay,” Bucky promises immediately. “Nothing’s hurting, Stevie, I swear.”

“Would you tell me if it was?”

“You asked me to, right?”

“Yeah, but…” Steve’s eyes do that complicated wince again, some sort of tangle of summer-storm emotion. “Buck…oh, Jesus, Bucky. I can’t—I just can’t—God, I couldn’t find you and I thought—”

“It’s okay.” Bucky puts both arms around him. “Hey, punk, I’m still here, you came and got me.”

“How many times…” Steve’s voice cracks. “How many times do I have left? Before someday I can’t—before it’s too much, before you hate me, before I can’t save you enough and I’m not there when you need me—so much blood, Buck, when I saw you, it was—I thought you were—”

“I know what you thought.” Bucky rubs his back, the way he’d done when they were kids, when Stevie was small enough to hold and fierce enough to punch anyone who wasn’t Bucky for trying it. “I know, Steve. But it wasn’t that, okay? It’s not.”

“I can’t lose you,” Steve whispers. His face is buried in Bucky’s hair, words landing against Bucky’s ear. “I can’t do this without you. Don’t go. Don’t leave me alone.”

“I won’t. I never will. I promise, Stevie. You and me, right? To the end of the line.”

Steve lets out a broken half-sobbing sort of noise and clutches him, and then pulls back to look him square in the eyes, and says, earnest as a vow, “I love you, Bucky.”

Bucky, shocked, can’t answer. That’s not real. Is it?

Steve’s expression crumples. Despair tattering all flags and banners. “I love you, and—and sometimes I think—you wouldn’t even be here if not for me, you could’ve gone home, you could’ve been safe…how can you even look at me, Jesus, everything I ask of you…everything, since we were fuckin’ kids, and I know it’s not fair to you, it’s never been fair…just keep hoping maybe if I love you enough it’ll make up for at least some of the shit I’ve dragged you through, but it doesn’t, it never does, it’s not enough, is it.”

“You…love me,” Bucky repeats.

“You don’t believe me.”

“I do. I just—” He can’t think. He presses fingers between his eyes. “Of course I fucking love you, Steve. I’m head over goddamn heels in love with you. I’m sorry, my head’s fucking splitting in half.”

Steve swears, short and self-castigating. “Shit—sorry—of course you should rest, come here, lie down—you want water, something—”

“No. But could you…” He breathes in, gathers courage. For himself, for Steve. “Stay with me? So I can touch you? Hold onto me, kinda.”

“Oh, Buck.” Steve’s voice wobbles. “Yeah, of course—of course I will, I’m here.” And he does: stripping off his own shirt, grabbing a blanket, lying down right there with Bucky, gathering Bucky close, folding their bodies together. “This okay?”

“Good,” Bucky answers automatically, and then thinks about that answer for a minute. Steve’s large and solid and real. Steve’s imperfect and scared and afraid of not being enough. Bucky’s also imperfect and scared and afraid of not being enough, so maybe they’re on the same page with that one, like a mirror image, sort of.

Steve’s hands are warm against his skin. Steve’s heartbeat’s fast and concerned and audible where Bucky’s head’s come to settle against his chest. The bed’s uncomfortable in a familiar way, the way they both know. The tent’s hushed, and lamplight’s found its way into every corner, banishing shadows for the moment.

They’re both here. Whatever else happens, whatever comes, they’re here. They’re not alone.

He doesn’t want to be alone, to feel alone. He wants Steve here with him.

He doesn’t mention uncannily healing injuries, or seeing in the dark, or the way he can’t quite find equilibrium, as if something’s shaken out of true, made unrecognizable deep inside. If he’s off-balance Steve can be his balance; if Steve needs an anchor Bucky can be that.

And they won’t be alone. Right?

He whispers, “I love you, punk. Just makin’ sure you know.” He’s got an arm around Steve’s waist, where they’re clinging to each other: still mostly dressed and. He tightens the hold. “Not going anywhere.”

“Good,” Steve mutters into his hair. “Good…so…okay. Okay, I’m not either. You’re here and I’m here and I fucking love you. Jerk. Bucky. Don’t fucking disappear like that, ’cause I can’t—just don’t, all right?”

“Blame Hydra and their love of dumbass supervillain booby traps. You’ll find me, anyway.”

“Always,” Steve promises, “always, Buck, I’ll always come for you,” and Bucky holds onto him, holds him, and lets himself listen to the words.


	4. ritual sacrifice / medieval

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A fantasy AU, and a ritual sacrifice, of a sort.

Even as a boy, Bucky Barnes had heard stories of the Protector. The land’s greatest knight would not ever pay any mind to Bucky’s small oceanside village, of course; he’d be too busy fighting monsters like the Hydra, and riding to and from the shining tower and carrying his shining shield, and meeting with the Council or discovering a new quest.

But Bucky loved those stories anyway. Even more so because, the legend went, the Protector had been born in their village, ages ago, in time out of mind. Other villages claimed that, of course, and the Protector himself no longer remembered; it likely did not matter.

Bucky liked that thought, though, and kept it for himself. He thought that perhaps they’d have something in common, boys from the same ocean-scented village; he wondered, sometimes, whether the Protector ever grew tired or lonely, and might want a friend.

He knew the other part of the legend, of course. That the Protector sometimes came to take people, if he and the Council thought it best. That those people did not return, or if they did they were changed: silver wings, speed, green skin.

That everyone accepted this as right and good, that this was the price for safety and care.

That it was an honor, of sorts, to be chosen. To be given a new life.

Bucky had always wondered about that as well. Did the selections want a new life? Were they happy? Were they sometimes afraid—or sometimes relieved?

He did not have answers, though; no one did. And so Bucky made up his own answers, sometimes; he told stories sometimes, for his sister Rebecca and her friends and later for others, around a fire or in a tavern, after a day spent in the works for the new harbor, the docks, the places for ships to land. To his own surprise he ended up with something of a reputation: a hard worker, yes, but also a dreamer, a storyteller, someone who could be counted on for imagination and tales spun out of science and into improbability, full of flying carts and potions for tireless strength.

Those days were good. They did not last.

War came, and it was brutal, and cruel, and vicious; war came, and Bucky went, because their country was going to war, because they were told it was a good cause, because he thought perhaps it was the right thing to do and because the recruiters looked interestedly at the people of Bucky’s village, and Bucky was worth several people, with his strength and his true eye and his gift for thinking like someone else, so when he volunteered they were satisfied.

War came, and Bucky fought, and Bucky saw the Protector from a distance—even commanded men in support of his mission, once—and Bucky saw, once, the Protector remove his helmet, exhausted and triumphant after a battle, after ensuring civilians and soldiers alike had been cared for; the young man beneath had sweat-dark short blond hair, and lines around his bright blue eyes, and he splashed water on his face before dragging his sleeve across it, for a heartbeat human and weary; and something in Bucky’s chest ached quite suddenly, though the rest of Bucky ignored the feeling.

The Protector would not look his way, of course.

War came, and Bucky fought, and Bucky lost an arm to the snow and a ravine and the magic on the enemy’s side, all blue-cold and crackling and sharp. He woke, captured and alone, to find a new arm: metal, flexible, inhuman, but real, courtesy of the enemy. He did not know how many days he remained there; he knew they tried to make him their creature, and indeed they thought they had.

When the Protector came to fight the enemy, Bucky caught a glimpse of those blue eyes; they tugged at that same thread in his heart, and he could not hurt the man behind the shield. He fled, though not without saving the Protector’s life: a spell had knocked the man into deep water, unconscious amid falling debris. Bucky had to save him.

The war had ended by the time he dared to go home, after: or not home precisely, a small goat-herd’s house on the outskirts of the village, because he had a metal arm and haunted thoughts, and he no longer remembered how to smile, or how to join men in the local tavern, or how to tell hopeful stories about imagined futures.

He made cheese, and learned to weave blankets, and sat outside watching the sunset, sometimes. He liked that. It felt peaceful.

And then, one day, a messenger arrived. An announcement. The Protector, coming to their village. A selection. All should be prepared to be the choice.

Bucky assumed this was not meant for him—scarred, wounded, tired, he would be no one’s choice—and stayed in his house, on the day of selection. He fed the goats. Read part of a treatise on the growing of plums. Baked some bread, and spread soft cheese and honey on it, and decided he might like to eat out behind his house, in the sun.

He stepped out of the door and nearly collided with a large blue heroic presence, a uniform and a shield and broad shoulders and legendary stature; he almost dropped bread and honey and cheese on the Protector, and caught everything including his breath, and stepped back. The sunshine framed the presence, and blinded him, tantalized him, for a moment.

“Sorry,” said the Protector, and he sounded genuinely so. “I didn’t mean to startle you. James Barnes? Bucky, they said, down in the village?”

“You’re here,” Bucky said, and then, “Bucky’s fine, I never go by James, I—never mind, can I help you? With something?” and then, somewhat panicked, “Do you want bread? And cheese? I made them. Both.”

The Protector took off his helmet; sun cascaded down. His face was the same face Bucky recalled; his eyes were the same blue, but even more tired. He was smiling, though: sudden and surprised, as if he’d forgotten how to do that very often. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

“Of course I do.” Bucky glanced down at his bread: homemade and simple. “Everyone knows you.”

“No. Not this.” One hand waved: the helmet, the shield. And a sigh. “I thought—maybe—never mind.”

“I remember you,” Bucky said. Something, that same lurking treacherous emotion, had stirred in him at the resignation in that tone. “You were tired, once. But you wouldn’t accept any water until you knew every other person had some.”

“You looked at me, then.” The Protector held out a hand. “Come outside with me?”

Bucky nodded, because that was what one did; and set down the plate of bread and went along. Their footsteps were quiet; the Protector’s boots made astonishingly little sound for someone so large and well-muscled. Grass and the curve of the river spread out before them; the Protector leaned a hip against Bucky’s low fence, let the shield drop to the ground, and said softly, “You saved me, once, too. And just now you offered me bread.”

“If you’re here to take someone,” Bucky said, “don’t. This village—they don’t have anyone to spare. The war—and we never know if we’ll see the selections again. It’s wrong.”

“I agree.” The Protector shifted weight, adjusted position against the fence. “But that’s the legend. The truth…that’s different.”

“Tell me, then.”

“We only take people with abilities that—that might be a danger to others. And we do ask. We try to ask. Sometimes we ask because we need those people. Very desperately.” He was watching Bucky’s face. “I think we need you.”

“You don’t.” Bucky leaned against the fence as well, crossing his arms, deliberately. The sun popped in with gratifying attention to detail and danced over metal, making his point. “I’ll say yes. If it means you won’t take anyone else. You know I will. But you don’t need me. You—what? Want to study me? This?”

A shot in the dark, but he’d always had good aim. The Protector flinched. “No. Or—yes, but that’s just Tony—no. Not if you say no.”

“Then why choose me?”

Those blue eyes swept out over the lake. Then visibly steeled themselves. Honesty. Given to Bucky. “Did you know I was from this village?”

Bucky lifted eyebrows, and retorted, “Not lately, you’re not…”

That earned almost a laugh. “No. Years ago…and I’m not immortal, either, thanks to whoever came up with that one…I do age slowly, but I definitely age. But yes, I grew up here. Used to live right about where your new apothecary’s moved in. My name’s Steve. Steven, really, but Steve. To friends.”

“Are we?”

“Friends? If you want to be.”

“Steve,” Bucky tested. Felt nice on his tongue. “I used to believe that. About you being from here. I mean, everyone does. About their own homes. I just thought…”

“You thought what?”

Bucky shrugged a shoulder, just one. “If you were lonely, might need a friend, I could talk to you about home. Kids’ thoughts. You know.”

“I know,” Steve said, “and you were right. You _are_ right. I want—if you’d say yes—why’d you save me? When we brought the rescue mission in, and I hit the water, and I saw you leave, after you pulled me out—why?”

“Because of the water,” Bucky said. “Not that water. Earlier. Before. Because you take care of people.”

“You remembered that. After what they’d done to you—”

“I couldn’t think because I had half a dozen spells fucking up my head, but I knew you were real and I knew you were worth saving. Was that what you wanted to hear?”

“No,” Steve said. “Yes. I don’t know. No, my point is—that’s why you. If we need anyone it’s you. If I need anyone— You’re someone who saves people. Who _sees_ people. Please.”

“You want me to come with you,” Bucky said. “To be a selection, or a volunteer, or whatever.”

“I want you,” Steve said, simple and earnest; and the gold got into his hair and eyes, spilling along a cheekbone like tears; Bucky heard, suddenly, the _other_ wanting in the words, the fact that this was _Steve_ asking, no helmet and no shield, laid bare and hopeful as new leaves in spring.

Astounded, he could only think, oh; and then, yes. Yes, if he wants that too, if he wants me, if I want, if we want, together; and the thought shivered like a drop on a leaf at dawn, as the sun came up.

He said, “I could say no.”

“You could.”

“It’d horrify everyone if I did. Tradition, the selection, all of that.”

“It would.”

“Would your team trust me?”

“I trust you.”

“If I don’t want to fight,” Bucky said, and stopped, and went on, “anymore. If I couldn’t.” And he thought: for you I would, if you ask me I would, please don’t ask, or if you do ask let it be my choice, and I’ll protect you.

“However you want,” Steve said, “whatever you want—you can bake bread at the tower if you want. I’ll bring your goats if you want. You can come home to visit if you want. If I can talk to you, if I can ask you what you see, or what you’re thinking—I’d heard of you. Not a lot, but a mention or two. Bucky Barnes. A storyteller, from my old village, who could make people laugh or cry or see what he saw. I thought—that’d be someone I’d like to meet, someday. Someone I could maybe—but then I thought, someone like that, you’d never, I’m only human, it’s just magic and a shield.”

“No,” Bucky said, and their eyes met; he went on, “You’re you. Everything you are. And I’m me.”

“Guess neither of us gets to be a kid from this village, anymore.”

“No. But…” Bucky drew a breath, let it go. Held out a hand: the enchanted metal one, shimmering, palm up. “But I could tell you stories. Sometime.”

Steve reached over and took his hand, no hesitation at all. “About home?”

“About home. Or what home might look like with flying carts.” He discovered his mouth tugging itself up, into a smile. “About a future. I’ll find someone to watch the goats. But you’ll have to live with me baking fresh bread. And making cheese. In your tower.”

“You’re saying yes.”

“I’m saying yes.” Bucky folded fingers around Steve’s, gentle; Steve’s were too, tender and amazed and revelatory, like the expression on his face, the emotion his eyes wore, softening and blooming.

Just to be clear, Bucky promptly threw in, “Take me off to your tower, make me this year’s selection, make me part of your story, I’m choosing this, Steve, so yes.”

And Steve held his hand and said “Yes!” in a tone that echoed the light spilling over their fingers, the light in blue skies.


	5. defiance, broken bones, blurred vision, ringing ears (chapter 1 sequel)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve needs to find Bucky. No matter how many Hydra minions're in the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one follows on from chapter one, which had Bucky waking up and going to find Steve!

Steve’s angry. That’s not an uncommon emotion—anger at injustices, at bullies, at shortsighted selfishness—but right now his anger’s got a clear and specific target.

He glares at the Hydra goons. They’re in his way. He takes some justified satisfaction in knocking them all down the stairs. He has to get back to Bucky.

He has to get back to Bucky, because the last time he saw Bucky there’d been a weapon firing and an explosion, and Steve had woken up being dragged toward a flying Hydra escape monstrosity, like a helicarrier but more spiky and evil, with orders being shouted about taking Captain America and abandoning the base and shooting the remaining prisoners—

The base is falling. The explosion’s made the foundations unstable. Steve pauses to punch a minion or two and keeps running. Defying fate, defying Hydra’s trap, defying their plans. How many times now?

The answer’s a lot. Between him and Bucky: a lot of defiance. Not doing what Hydra wants. Making would-be conquerors, monstrous scientists, and their henchmen all very annoyed.

Good. Steve’s annoyed too.

He’d woken up and knocked out the guards manhandling him, and then taken a running jump at the flying den of evil, with the result that it never managed to lift off and now sits smoking on the launchpad like a broken toy. And he’d bolted for the stairs: finding Bucky, finding captured agents, hammering in his thoughts.

His ears’re still ringing. His vision’s a little blurry. Must’ve landed on his head after the explosion. Must’ve been bad; he has to stop for a second as the staircase wavers. Getting better, though.

He has to be just fine. He has to find Bucky.

He can’t let Bucky die for him again. He can’t leave Bucky again. Not now, not ever.

Not now, when he and Bucky have fought for each other and fought each other and fought their way back to each other—they can have this, they’re not going to lose this, this tender wondrous perpetually amazed joy—

He has to save people. It’s what Captain America does. What Bucky would tell him to do.

He stumbles into a corridor—the fortress is a maze, twisting as a serpentine dungeon—and finds cells, and hostages, the kidnapped agents who’d been the bait. The doors’re easy enough to break; he tells them all to get out, to find the rest of the SHIELD team and head for the planned extraction and meeting-points, to watch out for slowly sagging old stones and crumbling walls.

It’s not a fast collapse. The building’s taking its time. But a chunk’s missing from its underside, and it totters with every shift in weight.

None of the people he’s pulled out has seen Bucky Barnes. Steve swallows a spike of glass— _he protected you, he loves you, he saves you and saves you and you can’t even FIND him_ —and doesn’t press his hand to his temple, though his head’s throbbing; he has to project authority, command, control of the situation.

He runs for the stairs again.

He runs into a knot of Hydra minions, all of whom try to kill him. Steve plows into them. They’re keeping him from Bucky.

This one’s a dense group, lots of them, and they’ve been well trained. Steve’s ears and eyesight are getting better but the ringing and occasional double vision are messing with his balance. He’s not as fast as he should be. Ends up briefly pinned against a wall. Magnetic cuffs on a wrist. A shot through his left knee.

Bodies shift. Stir. Fall. Not Steve’s doing. Someone else, quick and efficient. Steve pushes against the cuffs, takes advantage of distraction, tosses a minion down some stairs. Spins back to find a heap of disposed-of Hydra, everybody taken care of, and—

“Bucky—?” His voice scrapes, horrified. The fortress groans.

Bucky’s so badly hurt—visibly, clearly, painfully injured, broken ribs from the way he’s moving, broken ankles that’re healing but obviously not quite right, bruises around his throat, and then his _arms_ —the vibranium’s twisted and bent, though plainly functional, but the _other_ one’s only barely _recognizable_ —

“Figured you could use some help,” Bucky rasps; he makes a face at the sound of his own voice and lifts a bloody hand to touch his throat, even as Steve throws himself that direction and throws his arms around the other half of his soul.

Bucky staggers a step because Steve’s not light these days and they’re both healing, but holds onto him with reassuring strength: whatever Hydra and the explosion’ve done, he’s upright and mobile. Steve touches his cheek, hand shaky; blood gets on both of them, from both of them.

He kisses Bucky, then, because he has to: wild and frantic, proof of life and heartbeats, as the walls tremble and the fortress shudders around them. Bucky kisses him back, equally fierce, equally real.

They’re here. They’re here and still them. They’ve saved the captured agents; they can save each other, now.

Bucky holds onto him a little more as Steve pulls back; Steve stops instantly. “You ready to get out of here?”

He means: _are you okay, can I carry you, please let me help?_ But Bucky just nods, not bothering to try to talk, and braces himself against Steve’s shoulder.

“Okay,” Steve says, “together,” and they support each other, they hold onto each other and heal, and run for the extraction point as the fortress comes down.


	6. blackmail / migraine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Modern-day politician!Steve and writer!Bucky AU! With headaches, attempted blackmail, and happy endings.

Bucky reads the email. Then reads it again. Looks at the pictures. Then takes a deep breath and shuts his eyes, fingers pressing the spot between his eyebrows. He knows the words and the photos won’t go away.

He’s already got a headache: the beginnings of what, based on experience, is going to be a really awful migraine. It’s been a long day even though it’s only eleven in the morning; he loves the energy and momentum of Steve’s congressional campaign, and he loves helping write press releases and speeches, and he loves Steve, of course.

It’s just a lot. Noise bounces around the headquarters and bounds into Bucky’s office despite his closed door. The passion’s wonderful but also loud. Their lives are already changing; they’ll change even more once Steve’s elected. And now there’s this.

Bucky wishes fleetingly, just for a second, that he and Steve could run away somewhere, just the two of them, maybe visiting a goat farm or the Grand Canyon or someplace quiet and vast and full of stars; and then he laughs a little at impossibilities and gets up. He loves Steve, and Steve needs to know about this.

He catches his balance with a hand on the side of his desk, as his vision briefly sparkles and blurs. His desk supports him, worried. Steve’ll be worried too, so Bucky squares his shoulders and ducks out into the cacophony of posters and phone calls and lurking reporters and interns. Several of them recognize him—not as Steve’s boyfriend, but as a valuable inner-circle staff member—and wave. Bucky lifts a hand in reply.

They don’t know he’s Steve’s boyfriend because, on advice from Brock the campaign manager, they’ve been keeping that one quiet. Bucky’s not an asset, Brock’d said. The sexuality _might_ be acceptable—Steve’s proudly pansexual, always has been, and Bucky’s also out and not shy about being gay, and Steve’s campaign’s built around inclusion and affirmation. Steve could run for office with a man on his arm. But James Buchanan Barnes specifically…

James Barnes, one-time prisoner of war. James Barnes, present-day moderately successful science fiction author, not bad with words and putting them together. James Barnes, formerly brainwashed former assassin. James Barnes, with a twisted and ugly past that even he doesn’t remember too much about, who’s done things the legal system says he’s not guilty of, not being in his sound mind and all, but who still pulled those triggers, set those traps. James Barnes has a prosthetic arm, PTSD, and migraines and full-body aches on an unpredictable and painful schedule.

James Barnes would be a liability, if Steve wants to win.

Bucky, who’d once upon a time seen Steve’s face on a local council-board election poster while roaming New York City streets on an assignment, who’d recognized the eyes of the boy who’d been the first person he’d ever kissed and the boy he’d grown up with and joined the Army with, who’d stood there and gone off-mission and abandoned his target because tiny firecrackers of memory were exploding behind his eyes…

Bucky had nodded. Agreeing with Brock.

Steve, of course, had been angry. But Steve also listens to Bucky, at least more than to anyone else. And Bucky had made a choice, and Steve won’t trample over that.

His head aches, dull and clumsy and thick. He clutches his phone.

He taps at the frame of Steve’s open door. Natasha, who’s in charge of publicity, is just getting up to leave; her expression starts as a smile but becomes concern. “Are you—”

Bucky tries for a smile. Even his face hurts. “Just something Steve should look over.”

Natasha obviously notices he’s not carrying anything, no printed speech drafts or copy for a press release, just his phone; but she only nods, not pushing. She does pat his shoulder, the not-prosthetic one, on the way out. And shuts the door.

Bucky’s pretty sure she’s guessed about him and Steve. He’s not sure Steve realizes that.

Steve at the moment is getting up—he’d been leaning casually against his desk, not sitting behind it—and coming over, holding out both hands, all muscles and blue eyes and golden shining heroic concern. “Buck—I was just going to come find you, I wanted to tell you—come here, sit down, you look—another migraine? Or—”

“Yeah, but that’s not it.” He does sit down, because Steve’s guiding him onto the small blue sofa. It’s not really big enough for two men their size, but being close to Steve feels nice. Or it does for now; his stomach twists. Steve might not want to hold him, in a minute. “I just got this email. You need to know.”

Steve takes his phone. Reads. Swears, low and vehement.

“Yeah.” Bucky closes his eyes. His stomach feels unhappy too. Nausea, right on schedule. Steve’s lights’re too bright. His shoulder hurts; even his hair aches. “I don’t know how he got those pictures. But the how doesn’t matter.”

The man has pictures. Bucky and Steve. Clearly together: caught sharing a kiss as they duck into their front door, coming home, laughing under an umbrella and the rain. Unmistakable.

He wants money. He also wants Steve to drop out of the race. The timing’s flawless; the polls have Steve ahead, as announced earlier this morning.

Steve sets down Bucky’s phone. Stretches an arm to reach the light switch, which he can, just barely, and dims the lights. Then coaxes Bucky further down onto the sofa, head pillowed on Steve’s lap. Bucky tries to protest but desperately wants to lie down, wants Steve’s hands on him, and so gives in.

Steve’s artist’s fingers rub lightly over his temple. “How’s this?”

“Better.” It is, a little. Steve knows how hard and where to touch, or not touch, or work up to. “Love you.” Even as he says it, he winces: that’s exactly the problem right now.

Steve’s hand moves to the nape of Bucky’s neck, soothing, rubbing tension away. “Love you. So, um. What I wanted to tell you…guess this won’t be so bad, after all, and the timing’s even kinda funny…”

“Steve, he’s trying to blackmail you. Using me.”

“And it’s not gonna work.” Steve’s deploying a version of the politician voice, the authoritative fiercely protective one that never fails to weaken Bucky’s knees, but this version’s even deeper and rumbly and intimate: Steve’s not about to let _anyone_ threaten Bucky. “I fired Brock this morning.”

“You what? Why?” Bucky starts to sit up. Cars crash inside his skull; he can’t breathe, dizzy. “I need to write you a statement—you’ll need a draft of—Jesus, Steve, tell me you at least said something _tactful_ —”

“Well, I didn’t punch him. Close, though.” Steve sounds amazingly unworried. His hands ease Bucky back down; one covers Bucky’s eyes, making the world blessedly dark and calm. “Nat’s taking over as campaign manager. That’s what she was in here to talk about.”

“Jesus,” Bucky says again. “It’s only eleven am, and you’ve fired Brock and given Nat a new job, and we’re getting blackmailed. Why’d you fire him?”

“He…said something I didn’t like. Want me to make your ginger tea or grab your painkillers?”

“No, just stay here for now. It wasn’t about me, was it?” The guilty silence on Steve’s end makes Bucky’s head thump more. “Steve, no. Tell me you’re not firing people over me.”

“I fired him because he’s a fucking awful person who says fucking awful things about people who’ve been through trauma, and also about women, and also about people in therapy, and also about which of our interns he wants to fuck,” Steve says. “I don’t want _any_ of that around here. And I want you here. I’m done pretending I’m not in love with you, Bucky Barnes.”

“Steve—”

“I’m proud to be with you.” Steve lifts the hand from Bucky’s eyes long enough for Bucky to focus on him, to see he means it. He does, and all that fiery conviction takes Bucky’s breath away.

Steve Rogers has always been ready to take on any villains, to join any protests, to protect the world if the world needs a protector. Skinny scrawny sickly Steve’d had that lion’s heart long before the Army and the rippling muscles and, now, the carefully chosen politician’s suits and ties. Steve knows about strategies on all sorts of battlefields.

And Bucky loves him so damn much, with heart and soul and fingertips and kisses and aching dreams and hopes and promises. With everything they are and have been and will be, together.

Steve goes on, “I’m proud to stand next to you. I love you. I don’t fucking care who knows it—it’s about time _everyone_ knows it. That’s who I am, and I’m not gonna hide it, and I’m not gonna let some jerk with a camera ruin it. You’re you and I’m me and we’re together to the end of the line.”

“And that’s that,” Bucky manages, shaky.

“Yep.”

“So…we’re…just gonna ignore the whole blackmail thing.”

“We can report it. But I’d already decided.” Steve hesitates. His hand’s stroking Bucky’s hair now, a welcome deliberate heavy presence. “But…guess I didn’t exactly ask you. Shit. I’m sorry, Buck, I should’ve. I haven’t said anything yet, just fired Brock, so…if you want…if you’d rather not…we don’t _have_ to go public. You don’t have to go through that.”

Bucky doesn’t answer for a second, only lying still in the dark. Steve’s thigh’s a good pillow. Steve’s voice is warm and loving. Steve’s hands are full of love too.

He says, “I’ll write us a statement. A press release. And we should do an interview together.”

Steve’s hand stops moving.

Bucky opens his eyes a fraction. Peeking up. “Kinda proud to be with you, too, y’know.”

“Oh,” Steve says. “But—I thought—”

“Never really wanted to hide.” Bucky shrugs a shoulder, a small movement; it doesn’t hurt. “Just thought…maybe it was the right advice, not like I know anything about politics, and maybe you’d be better off…”

“I wasn’t. Not without you.” Steve touches a fingertip to Bucky’s mouth; Bucky kisses it. “So you only agreed because of me. Trying to protect me.”

“And you fire people because of me.”

“Just the one, and he’s a dick.”

“I like _your_ dick,” Bucky tells him, not that Steve doesn’t already know. “So…guess we’re doing this. When?”

“Now,” Steve says. “I’m taking a long lunch and I don’t have anything I can’t reschedule—or that Nat can’t handle—this afternoon. I’m planning to take my boyfriend home, take care of him, and also kiss him in front of the whole campaign staff on the way out. If he’s, y’know, good with that.”

“He’s very, very good with that,” Bucky says, because it’s very, very true. Despite the pounding in his head, the world’s looking fantastic. Brock’s gone, Steve’s ahead in the polls, the blackmail’s utterly irrelevant, and Bucky gets to kiss Steve and be loved by Steve and swept away by Steve while people cheer, and so, yeah: good, he decides, is exactly the word.


End file.
